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  Smoothing the frown out of his expression took so much energy, Danny barely heard the actual recitation of the prizes. The sack of cash from the sponsors would be nice, and Danny wouldn’t turn down the brand-new car, although he wasn’t sure where he’d park it in the West Village.

  But the personal chef write-up and restaurant review in internationally renowned food magazine Délicieux? Now, that was a prize worth fighting for.

  Danny perked up his ears as soon as Claire Durand, the editor in chief of Délicieux, spoke.

  In her lightly accented voice, Claire began, “Bonjour. I hope you have slept well, because last night was perhaps your last chance to do so.”

  Danny’s muscles tightened in anticipation, his shoulders stiff enough to snap, but there wasn’t a peep from the hecklers in the back row. Guess even Ryan Larousse was smart enough to keep his ugly gob shut when Claire Durand was talking.

  “The next few weeks will be grueling as we begin to winnow out the losing teams. A series of culinary challenges await you, and you must do your utmost to meet them. Those who fall behind will be eliminated. Those who rise above will advance to the next round, and the opportunity to cook … how do you say?”

  Her elegant brows drew down over her regal French nose.

  “Mano a mano?” suggested Kane Slater.

  She shot the younger man a look Danny couldn’t decipher.

  “Head-to-head,” Devon supplied, crossing his arms over his chest meaningfully. “The final round will be one chef from each of the two teams left standing.”

  A ripple of excitement passed around the room like a high-stakes game of telephone. This was a new development—past years had seen the final challenge continue on in much the same vein as the earlier rounds: teams competing against one another for a whole-team win.

  “In this moment, however,” Claire said, seizing control of the conversation once more, “the team is key. Yes? You will find teamwork to be vital to all the challenges in this round of the competition—and the way you work as a team will tell us much about you as chefs. Good luck.”

  She looked back to Eva, who was clearly continuing in her role as mistress of ceremonies.

  Tucking a sleek wing of dark hair behind her ear, Eva turned to the chefs. “The United States is a country as diverse in fabulous local foodways as it is in cultures, languages, and ethnicities. But a few cities stand above the rest as leaders in the culinary world. The rivalry between New York and San Francisco is well established, but we chose to begin the competition in Chicago for two reasons.”

  She paused dramatically, giving Danny time to notice the way she filled out that red dress. Style-wise, it probably shouldn’t be that sexy an outfit, he thought. It wasn’t particularly low-cut; the sleeves went down to her elbows, and the hem was somewhere around her knees. But somehow, every time he looked at her, he could barely breathe for wanting her.

  Eva wasn’t showing a lot of skin, but what skin she did have on display was choice.

  As if she could hear his thoughts, Eva’s eyes fastened on Danny’s face. They’d taken on that special sparkle he was already becoming familiar with—the one that said she had him right where she wanted him.

  “The first reason we came to Chicago was because, out of all the teams who won the right to compete, the Midwest Team from the restaurant Limestone, right here in the Gold Coast Hotel in Chicago, scored the highest in the final round of judging.”

  A stir swept through the kitchen as chefs on every team glanced at one another and reevaluated their competition.

  Danny kept his gaze straight ahead, locked with Eva’s, while his mind raced to assimilate the new information. He couldn’t help feeling as if she was throwing this out there as a personal challenge to him, even though he knew, rationally, that wasn’t true.

  Obviously, this was something they’d planned out way in advance. Long before Eva had set her sights on him, for whatever reason. And it made sense, from a publicity standpoint—if Eva wanted the Cooking Channel to broadcast the competition, she had to give them some drama.

  Casting the Midwest Team as the front-runners and everyone else as underdogs was a good start.

  “And the second reason,” Eva continued, a cat-in-the-cream-pot smile on her face at the stir she’d caused, “is that we wanted to celebrate the exceptional diversity and exciting freshness of the Chicago food scene.

  “There are several foods and techniques Chicago is famous for. In your first official challenge, we’d like each team to prepare a three-course meal that best represents your team’s talents—Chicago-style. You have two hours to plan and shop this morning, then four hours to prep this afternoon. You’ll have two more hours to cook tomorrow, before the judges come back to taste your food. Oh, and Chefs? One more thing.”

  The air felt electrified, and Danny’s heart was beating hard enough to shake his whole chest. What kind of curve-ball was she about to throw at them?

  “This will be our first elimination challenge,” Eva said gently. “The team the judges choose as their least favorite will be going home tomorrow night. The other four teams will progress to the next round. So, with that said, are you ready?”

  A chorus of voices shouted yes, the adrenaline of the room spiking hard as every contestant tensed, poised for action. Danny could feel his muscles twitching, his hands almost shaking with the need to be cooking, stirring, measuring, plating.

  Eva swept one red-clad arm to the side, pointing at a digital timer mounted on the wall beside the clock. “Go,” she barked, and the timer flashed on, red numbers counting down the seconds and making Danny feel as if he were already behind.

  Everyone scrambled to put their heads together while the judges trooped out of the kitchen, leaving the chefs behind with Eva and her camera crew.

  Because he couldn’t stop himself and his focus was for shit, part of Danny’s brain tracked her as she efficiently unclipped her microphone from the back of the shiny black leather belt cinching her slim waist and snagged the rumpled camera guy for another intense discussion.

  “Are we boring you?” Max’s laughing voice in his ear brought Danny back to earth.

  Cheeks stinging with embarrassment, Danny cleared his throat and resolved to ignore Eva Jansen, no matter how unreasonably hot she was. “Sorry. What’ve we got so far?”

  “So far we’ve named two things Chicago is known for,” Jules said, pencil poised above the notebook she carried around in her back pocket for jotting down menu ideas. “Steak and hot dogs.”

  “Sausage, in general.” Beck crossed his arms over his chest. “Chicago is the hog butcher for the world.”

  The line caught Danny by surprise, made him give the guy a closer look. Somehow, he hadn’t expected big, scary Beck to be quoting from a Carl Sandburg poem.

  “Pizza, too,” Winslow added. “That weird deep-dish kind.”

  Chicago-style pies—with their thick, doughy crusts and mountainous piles of toppings—were so different from the typical New York slice of floppy, deliciously greasy pizza, they hardly seemed like the same category of food at all.

  “I’m not confident about our ability to get a Chicago-style deep-dish pizza right,” Danny said. “What else do they have going on in this town?”

  “There are a few places—Limestone is one of them—where Chicago chefs are taking experimental cooking to the next level,” Beck said, his gaze fierce and intent on the notepad in Jules’s hand. He seemed to be working extra hard to concentrate, and Danny felt a brief, searing moment of admiration for the guy.

  Whatever unresolved mess existed between Beck and that San Francisco chef, Skye Gladwell—Beck was handling it like a pro.

  Better than Danny was dealing with his unwelcome attraction to Eva Jansen, at any rate.

  Focus, asshole.

  “So the Midwest Team is likely to stick to what they know and do something avant garde and crazy with garlic foam, basil ice cream, and tomato water, or whatever,” Max said. He’d always been good at strateg
y. It used to drive Danny crazy when they played board games, but now he was glad of it.

  What Danny was good at was research. “I’ve been reading up on Chicago, actually,” he said, carefully avoiding Max’s eye. Max liked to give him shit for it, but it had saved the team’s ass on more than one occasion. “And the current big trends here are brunch and comfort food. Smaller restaurants in the hot neighborhoods like Bucktown and Wicker Park get lines out the door and around the block for fancy waffles and a good omelet, and everybody in town has their own version of chicken potpie and mashed potatoes.”

  “Great!” Jules’s eyes lit up the way they did when her imagination was sparked. Scribbling madly, she asked, “Any other thoughts?”

  “Oh!” Winslow jumped as if he’d been goosed. “I know another thing Chicago’s known for—jazz. Jazz, clubs, Prohibition, the mob, lounge singers, soul food … hey!”

  As always, Win looked surprised that his seemingly random brainstorming had produced a real idea, but Danny was no longer shocked by it. “Good one, man,” he said, clapping the younger chef on the back.

  “Yeah, but I bet the southern team will think of it, too,” Win said. “And my mama might be black, but she grew up in New York City, and so did I. Food that feeds the soul at my house is take-out pad Thai and delivery Chinese dumplings.”

  Danny tilted his head back to stare at the ventilation-hooded ceiling. “It’s a little early in the competition to start trying to beat the other teams at their own game. We need to stick to what we know and love to cook—which is steak.”

  Lunden’s Tavern had been the go-to spot for a great steak in the West Village for decades. Their family had served everyone, from Ronald Reagan to Luciano Pavarotti. Up until his death, they’d kept a special supply of a certain type of canned Italian sardines on hand, just in case Frank Sinatra blew through town.

  “But we did steak at the regional finals,” Jules argued. “It’s too obvious to do it again so soon. Even if we didn’t replicate Max’s soy-lacquered tenderloin, I think it’s too similar, makes us too much of a one-trick pony.”

  “Ms. Jansen did say we’re supposed to show who we are as chefs and as a team with this dish,” Win reminded them. “So it’s all about what do we want to show. We got talent here, folks. No need to cook ourselves into a corner this early on.”

  Despite the sharp stab of nerves that always assaulted Danny at the idea of breaking away from the familiar, he nodded firmly. If everyone already agreed, he wasn’t going to be the one to make waves. “You’re right. No steak for this challenge. So what do we do instead? What’s left on the list?”

  Silence descended while they each ran through the options they’d already brainstormed. Danny’s brain whirred through the choices at lightning speed, adding and tossing ingredients in different combinations and configurations. It was hard to work out what he’d be doing for his dessert course until he knew what the main would be, because all three courses needed to flow together seamlessly to create one perfect, coherent taste experience.

  When Beck was the one to break the pause, they all looked at him with varying degrees of startlement. It wasn’t that Beck never spoke, but he was on the strong-and-silent side, more a supporter than a leader.

  But something was different about him today. Danny studied him closely, trying to figure out what it was that made the guy seem more … there, and present, than he usually did.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Beck said slowly, his deep voice rumbling over the words like tires over gravel. “What if we did a breakfast-for-dinner thing? There’s this seafood sausage I’ve been wanting to try my hand at…”

  And just like that, a world of possibilities opened up. Danny licked his lips as the potential swirled through him. Around him, his teammates were all lit from within by the fire of a great idea, talking excitedly and sketching plans on Jules’s notepad.

  They had a shot. They could win this thing, Danny knew it down to his bones.

  And as the wall timer ticked down, Danny looked up to catch Eva Jansen’s eyes on him.

  One moment of eye contact, the suggestive curl of her shimmery red lips, had Danny hardening in a scorching hot rush.

  Okay. They could win this thing—if he could manage to keep his dick in his pants and his mind in the kitchen.

  Somehow, as he watched the way Eva’s hips rolled while she sauntered around the room making sure each team had what it needed, Danny thought that might be easier said than done.

  Chapter 9

  As soon as the judges left the kitchen, Claire handed her wireless mike to the PA and took off down the hall without a single glance back.

  Kane clenched his fists and forced himself to pay attention to what the other male judge, celebrity chef Devon Sparks, was saying.

  “You’re my wife’s favorite singer. She’s beyond pissed that I get to hang out with you all over the country for the next few weeks. Almost as pissed as she is that I’m leaving her alone to deal with morning sickness and cravings for peanut butter and fried pickles.” Devon smiled, and unlike the brilliant grin the cameras loved so much, this one went all the way to his electric blue eyes.

  It made Kane pause, breathe in, because Devon was clearly talking about something—someone—that mattered to him, and Kane had promised himself a long time ago that he would never, ever be the kind of person who ignored what mattered.

  It was a hard promise to keep when he existed between the shallow, glittery world of LA parties and the surreal eternal road trip of touring, but he did his best.

  Ignoring the fact that Claire was waiting for an elevator, about to slip out of his reach, Kane returned Devon’s smile and said, “Congratulations on the baby thing! And thanks, man. It never stops being awesome to hear about someone listening to my stuff. What’s your wife’s name?”

  The guy’s almost-too-perfect face melted into something human, right before Kane’s eyes. “Lilah. Lilah Jane Sparks, and she listens to your music so much—if I didn’t know she loved me, I would’ve tossed every one of your CDs out in the street a long time ago.”

  The deep, comfortable assurance of his wife’s affections gave Devon a settled, grounded air that affected Kane strangely.

  He was curious about it—what would it be like to know yourself to be loved, completely and utterly, by someone other than your family?—but he was curious about a lot of things, so that wasn’t weird. What was weird was the way Kane was simultaneously attracted to and repelled by the idea.

  To be loved … sure, who didn’t want that? But to be settled and grounded. Ugh. Kane suppressed a shudder. That wasn’t for him. He had too much to do, too much to see and experience and accomplish, to take a dive, clip his wings, and start shuffling through the dirt.

  Song lyrics tickled at his brain, distracting him. “Well, I’m glad you didn’t,” he said vaguely, trying to blink the fuzziness away. “You … want me to sign something for Lilah?”

  “Actually, I had a different favor to ask,” Devon said, looking sheepish as he pulled his phone from the pocket of his perfectly tailored camel blazer. “Today is her birthday. Would you mind…?”

  Kane relaxed. This was easy. “Sure, man, no big. Dial her up for me, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

  Devon tapped the phone’s screen once, then handed it to Kane. A sweet molasses voice drawled in his ear, slow and husky with sleep, “Mmm, time for my morning sugar. How do you always know just the thing to make me feel better?”

  Sending Devon a smile, Kane started to sing into the phone, to the accompaniment of shocked silence followed by a bit of squealing and laughing. By the time he’d made it to “And many moooore,” Devon was beaming, Lilah was practically in hysterics, and Claire was long gone.

  Suppressing a sigh, Kane brushed off Devon’s thanks and said good-bye to Lilah.

  “You’re the best, Slater. I won’t forget it. Catch you later!”

  As soon as Devon got his phone back, it was clear he and his wife needed a little alone time—a
nd after witnessing their connection up close and personal, Kane kind of wanted to be alone, too. He waved Devon away with a smile and stuck his hands in his pockets, wandering the hallway in front of the hotel kitchen doors.

  He was trying to decide if he could stomach the idea of using his famous face to pry Claire’s room number out of the chick working the reception desk upstairs when Eva slipped into the corridor, pulling the doors gently closed behind her.

  “Hey, babe,” Kane greeted her, glad of the distraction from his increasingly circuitous and unhappy thoughts. “How’s it going in there?”

  She brought a hand up to her mouth as if she wanted to bite the nail of her index finger, but as soon as she realized it was shellacked with red paint, she twisted both hands behind her back. “It’s going okay. Maybe. I don’t know. God, what made me think I could pull this off?”

  “Aw, now.” Eva never failed to move him to big-brotherly tenderness when she dropped that shark-like armor and showed her vulnerable white belly. “It can’t be as bad as all that. The chefs looked like they were ready and raring to go when we left ’em. C’mere. You’re doing good.”

  He gave her a one-armed hug, squeezing her shoulders tight. With her in those spike heels, they were almost the same height. It made Kane wish nostalgically for his old, scuffed-up cowboy boots to give him an extra inch or so on her, but he’d left those behind when he left Texas.

  “The chefs are crazy. They’re fighting already and we haven’t really even gotten started yet,” Eva wailed, turning her face into his shoulder and probably smudging makeup all over it. “And the cameraman is driving me bonkers—the producer from the Cooking Channel keeps saying he’s not sure there’s enough action and drama even to make a B reel for if they do the live feed from the final challenge in San Francisco. What does he expect?”

  “I don’t know, I think things have been pretty action-packed so far,” Kane said. “What about that fistfight yesterday?”

  “But I don’t want them to air stuff like that,” Eva wailed. “That’s not what the RSC is about!”